power then ever for the aid of the French The Catholicks of which Realm had joyned themselves in a common League not onely to exclude the King of Navar and the Prince of Condâ— from their Succession to the Crown but wholly to extirpate the Reformed Religion To counterpoise which Potent Faction the King of Navar and his Associates in that Cause implored the assistance of their Friends in Germany but more particularly the Prince Elector Palatine the Duke of Wirtemberge the Count of Mombelliard and the Protestant Cantons who being much moved by the danger threatned unto their Religion and powerfully stirred up by Beza who was active in it began to raise the greatest Army that ever had been sent from thence to the aid of the Hugonots And that the action might appear with some Face of Justice it was thought fit to try what they could do towards an atonement by sending their Ambassadors to the Court of France before they entred with their Forces But the Ambassador of Prince Casimir carried himself in that imployment with so little reverence and did so plainly charge the King with the infringing of the Edicts of Pacification that the King dismist them all with no small disdain telling them roundly that he would give any man the lye which should presume to tax him of the breach of his promise This short dispatch hastned the coming in of the Army compounded of twelve thousand German Horse four thousand German Foot sixteen thousand Switz and about eight thousand French Auxiliaries which staid their coming on the Borders With which vast Army they gained nothing but their own destruction for many of them being consumed by their own intemperance more of them wasted by continual skirmishes with which they were kept exercised by the Duke of Guise most of the rest were miserably slaughtered by him near a place called Auneaw a Town of the Province of La Beausse or murthered by the common people as they came in their way 11. Such ill success had Frederick the Fourth in the Wars of France as made him afterwards more careful in engaging in them until he was therein sollicited on a better ground to aid that King against the Leaguers and other the disturbers of the Common Peace Nor did some other of the petty Princes speed much better in the success of this Affair the Country of Montbelguard paying dearly for the Zeal of their Count and almost wholly ruined by the Forces of the Duke of Guise Robert the last Duke of Bouillon of the House of Marke had spent a great part of his time in the acquaintance of Beza and afterwards became a constant follower of the King of Navar by whom he was imployed in raising this great Army of Switz and Germans and destined to a place of great Command and Conduct in it Escaping with much difficulty in the day of the slaughter he came by many unfrequented ways to the Town of Geneva where either spent with grief of minde or toyl of body he dyed soon after leaving the Signory of Sedan to his Sister Charlot and her to the disposing of the King of Navar who gave her in Marriage not long after to the Viscount Turenne but he had first established Calvinism both for Doctrine and Discipline in all the Towns of his Estate in which they were afterwards confirmed by the Marriage of Henry Delatoure Viscount of Turenne Soveraign of Sedan and Duke of Bouillon by his former Wife with one of the Daughters of William of Nassaw Prince of Orange a professed Calvinian the influence of which House by reason of the great Command which they had in the Netherlands prevailed so far on many of the Neighbouring Princes that not onely the Counties of Nassaw and Hanaw with the rest of the Confederacy of Vetteravia but a great part of Hassia also gave entertainment to those Doctrines and received that Discipline which hath given so much trouble to the rest of Christendom Which said we have an easie passage to the Belgick Provinces where we shall finde more work in prosecution of the Story then all the Signories and Estates of the Upper Germany can present unto us 12. The Belgick Provinces subject in former times to the Dukes of Burgundy and by descent from them to the Kings of Spain are on all sides invironed with France and Germany except toward the West where they are parted by the Intercurrent-Ocean from the Realm of England with which they have maintained an ancient and wealthy Traffick Being originally in the hands of several Princes they fell at last by many distinct Titles to the House of Burgundy all of them except five united in the person of Duke Philip the good and those five added to the rest by Charles the Fifth From hence arose that difference which appears between them in their Laws and Customs as well as in distinct and peculiar Priviledges which rendred it a matter difficult if not impossible to mould them into one Estate or to erect them into an absolute and Soveraign though it was divers times endeavoured by the Princes of it The whole divided commonly into seventeen Provinces most of them since they came into the power of the Kings of Spain having their own proper and subordinate Governours accountable to their King as their Lord in Chief who had the sole disposal of them and by them managed all Affairs both of War and Peace according to their several and distinct capacities All of them priviledged so far as to secure them all without a manifest violation of their Rights and Liberties from the fear of Bondage But none so amply priviledged as the Province of Brabant to which it had been granted by some well-meaning but weak Prince amongst them that if their Prince or Duke by which name they called him should by strong hand attempt the violation of their ancient priviledges the Peers and People might proceed to a new Election and put themselves under the Clyentele or Patronage of some juster Governour 13. The whole Estate thus laid together is reckoned to contain no more in compass then twelve hundred miles but is withall so well planted and extremely populous that there are numbered in that compass no fewer then three hundred and fifty Cities and great Towns equal unto Cities besides six thousand and three hundred Villages of name and note some of them equal to great Towns not taking in the smaller Dorps and inferiour Hamlets But amongst all the Cities and great Towns there were but four which anciently were honoured with Episcopal Sees that is to say the Cities of Vtrecht Cambray Tournay and Arras and of these four they onely of Arras and Tournay were naturally subject to the Princes of the House of Burgundy the Bishop of Cambray being anciently a Prince of the Empire and Vtrecht not made subject to them till the Government of Charles the Fifth Which paucity of the Episcopal Sees in so large a Territory subjected some of the Provinces to the
and in his own Patrimonial Right was Lord of the strong Towns and goodly Signories of Breda Grave and Diest in the Dukedom of Brabant In the right of which last Lordship he was Burgrave of Antwerp He was also Marquess of Vere and Vlushing with some jurisdiction over both in the Isle of Walcheren by Charles the Fifth made Knight of the Golden Fleece and by King Philip Governour of Holland Zealand and the County of Burgundy All which he might have peaceably enjoyed with content and honour as did the Duke of Areschot and many others of the like Nobility if he had aimed onely at a personal or private greatness But it is possible that his thoughts carryed him to a higher pitch and that perceiving what a general hatred was born by the Low Country-men against the Spaniard he thought it no impossible thing to dispossess them at the last of all those Provinces and to get some of them for himself And he had put fair for it had not death prevented him by which his life and projects were cut off together For compassing which projects he made use of that Religion which best served his turn being bred a Lutheran by his Father he profest himself a Romanist under Charles the Fifth and after finding the Calvinians the more likely men to advance his purposes he declared himself chiefly in their favour though he permitted other Sects and Sectaries to grow up with them in which respect he openly opposed all Treaties Overtures and Propositions looking towards a peace which might not come accompanied with such a liberty of Conscience both in Doctrine and Worship as he knew well could never be admitted by the Ministers of the Catholick King But the Calvinians of all others were most dear unto him By his encouragement the Belgick Confession was drawn up and agreed upon 1567. By his countenance being then Burgrave and Governour of Antwerp as before is said they set up their Consistory in that City as afterwards in many others of the Dukedome of Brabant and by his favour they attained unto such Authority and took such deep root in Holland Zealand and the rest of the Provinces under his command that they prevailed in fine over all Religious Sects and Sectaries which are therein tolerated 57. And that they might the better be enabled to retain that power which under him they had acquired they were resolved not to return again to their first obedience which they conceived so inconsistent with it and destructive of it To this end they commit the Government to some few amongst them under the name of the Estates who were to govern all affairs which concerned the publick in the nature of a Common-wealth like to that of the Switzers so much the more agreeable to them because it came more neer to that form or Polity which they had erected in the Church And in this posture they will stand as long as they can which if they found themselves unable to continue with any comfort and that they needs must have a Prince they will submit themselves to the French and English or perhaps the Dane to any rather then their own And to this point it came at last for the Prince of Parma so prevailed that by the taking of Gaunt and Bruges he had reduced all Flanders to the Kings obedience brought Antwerp unto terms of yeilding and carried on the War to the Walls of Vtrecht In which extremity they offered themselves to the French King but his affairs were so perplexed by the Hugonots on the one side and the Guisian Faction on the other that he was not in a fit capacity to accept the offer In the next place they have recourse to the Queen of England not as before to take them into her protection but to accept them for her Subjects and that the acceptance might appear with some shew of justice they insist on her descent from Philip Wife to King Edward the Third Sister and some say Heir of William the Third Earl of Holland Haynalt c. Which Philip if she were the Eldest Daughter of the said Earl William as by their Agents was pretended then was the Queens Title better then that of the King of Spain which was derived from Margaret the other Sister Or granting that Philip was the younger yet on the failer or other legal interruption of the Line of Margaret which seemed to be the case before them the Queen of England might put in for the next Succession and though the Queen upon very good reasons and considerations refused the Soveraignty of those Countries which could not without very great injury to publick justice be accepted by her yet so far she gave way to her own fears the ambition of some great persons who were near unto her and the pretended Zeal of the rest that she admitted them at the last into her protection 58. The Earl of Leicester was at that time of greatest power in the Court of England who being a great favourer of the Puritan Faction and eagerly affecting to see himself in the head of an Army sollicited the affair with all care and cunning and it succeeded answerably to his hopes and wishes The Queen consents to take them into her protection to raise an Army of five thousand Foot and one thousand Horse to put it under the Command of a sufficient and experienced General and to maintain it in her pay till the War were ended And it was condescended to on the other side that the Towns of Brill and Vlushing with the Fort of Ramekins should be put into the hands of the English that the Governour whom the Queen should appoint over the Garrisons together with two other persons of her nomination should have place and suffrage in the Council of the States United that all their own Forces should be ranged under the Command of the English General and that the States should make no peace without her consent By which transaction they did not onely totally withdraw themselves from the King of Spain but suffered the English to possess the Gates of the Netherlands whereby they might imbar all Trade shut out all Supplies and hold them unto such conditions as they pleased to give them But any Yoke appeared more tolerable then that of the Spaniard and any Prince more welcome to them then he to whom both God and Nature had made them subject According unto which agreement Vlushing is put into the hands of Sir Philip Sidney the English Army under the Command of the Earl of Leicester and which is more then was agreed on an absolute Authority over all Provinces is committed to him together with the glorious Titles of Governour and Captain-General of Holland Zealand and the rest of the States United which how it did displease the Queen what course was took to mitigate and appease her anger what happened in the war betwixt him and the Prince of Parma and what cross Capers betwixt him and the States themselves is not
privy Postern The news of this disorder is carried post to the Queen who thereupon gives order to the Provost of Edenborough to seize upon the persons of Andrew Armstrong or Patrick Craâ—ston the Chief-Ringleaders of the tumult that they might undergo the Law at a time appointed for fore-thought Felony in making a violent invasion into the Queens Palace and for spoliation of the same This puts the Brethren into a heat and Knox is ordered by the consent of the rest of the Ministers to give notice unto all the Church of the present danger that they might meet together as one man to prevent the mischief In the close of which Letter he â—ets them know what hopes he had that neither flattery nor fear would make them so far to decline from Christ Jesus as that against their publick Promise and solemn Bond they would leave their dear Brethren in so just a cause It was about the beginning of August that the tumult hapned and the beginning of October that the Letter was written A Copy of it comes into the hands of the Lords of the Council by whom the writing of it was declared to be treason to the great rejoycing of the Queen who hoped on this occasion to revenge her self upon him for his former insolencies But it fell out quite contrary to her expectation Knox is commanded to appear before the Lords of the Council and he comes accordingly but comes accompanied with such a train of godly Brethren that they did not onely fill the open part of the Court but thronged up stairs and prest unto the doors of the Council This makes the man so confident as to stand out stoutly against the Queen and her Council affirming that the convocating of the people in so just a Cause was no offence against the Law and boldly telling them that they who had inflamed the Queen against those poor men were the Sons of the Devil and therefore that it was no marvail if they obeyed the desires of their Father who was a Murtherer from the beginning Moved with which confidence or rather terrified with the clamours of the Rascal Rabble even ready to break in upon them the whole Nobility then present absolved him of all the crimes objected to him not without some praise to God for his modesty and for his plain and sensible answers as himself reports it 49. Worse fared it with the Queen and those of her Religion in another adventure then it did in this At the ministring of the Communion in Edenborough on the first of April the Brethren are advertised that the Papists were busie at their Mass some of which taking one of the Bayliffs with them laid hands upon the Priest the Master of the House and two or three of the Assistants all whom they carryed to the Tole-booth or Common-hall The Priest they re-invest with his Massing-Garments set him upon the Market-cross unto which they tye him holding a Chalice in his hand which is tyed to it also and there exposed him for the space of an hour to be pelted by the boys with rotten Eggs. The next day he is accused and convicted in a course of Law by which he might have suffered death but that the Law had never been confirmed by the King or Queen So that instead of all other punishments which they had no just power to inflict upon him he was placed in the same manner on the Market-cross the Common-hang-man standing by and there exposed to the same insolencies for the space of three or four hours as the day before Some Tumult might have followed on it but that the Provost with some Halberdiers dispersed the multitude and brought the poor Priest off with safety Of this the Queen complains but without any Remedy Instead of other satisfaction an Article is drawn up by the Commissioners of the next Assembly to be presented to the Parliament then sitting at Edenborough in which it was desired That the Papisâ—ical and blasphemous Mass with all the Papistical Idolatry and Papal Iurisdiction be universally supprest and abolished throughout this Realm not onely in the subjects but the Queens own person c. of which more hereafter It was not long since nothing was more preached amongst them then the great tyranny of the Prelates and the unmerciful dealing of such others as were in Authority in not permitting them to have the liberty of Conscience in their own Religion which now they denyed unto their Queen 50. But the affront which grieved her most was the perverse but most ridiculous opposition which they made to her Marriage she had been desired for a Wife by Anthony of Bourbon King of Navar Lewis Prince of Conde Arch-duke Charles the Duke of Bavaria and one of the younger Sons of the King of Sweden But Queen Elizabeth who endeavoured to keep her low disswaded her from all Alliances of that high strain perswaded her to Marry with some Noble Person of England for the better establishment of her Succession in the Crown of this Realm and not obscurely pointed to her the Earl of Leicester Which being made known to the Lady Margaret Countess of Lenox Daughter of Margaret Queen of Scots and Grand-childe to King Henry the Seventh from whom both Queens derived their Titles to this Crown she wrought upon the Queen of Scots by some Court-Instruments to accept her Eldest Son the Lord Henry Steward for her Husband A Gentleman he was above all exception of comely personage and very plausible behaviour of English Birth and Education and much about the same age with the Queen her self And to this Match she was the more easily inclined because she had been told of the King her Father that he resolved if he had dyed without any Issue of his own to declare the Earl of Lenox for his Heir Apparent that so the Crown might be preserved in the name of the Stewarts But that which most prevailed upon her was a fear she had lest the young Lord being the next Heir unto her self to the Crown of England might Marry into some Family of power and puissance in that Kingdom by means whereof he might prevent her of her hopes in the succession to which his being born in England and her being an Alien and an Enemy might give some advantage Nor did it want some place in her consideration that the young Lord and his Parents also were of the same Religion with her which they had constantly maintained notwithstanding all temptations to the contrary in the Court of England To smooth the way to this great business the Earl desires leave of Queen Elizabeth to repair into Scotland where he is graciously received and in â—ull Parliament restored unto his native Country from whence he had been banished two and twenty years The young Lord follows not long after and findes such entertainment at the hands of that Queen that report voiced him for her Husband before he could assure himself of his own affections This proved no
an Exile in England since the death of Morton to his Grace and Favour but most especially that in regard of the danger he was fallen into by the perverse counsels of the Duke of Lenox he would interpret favourably whatsoever had been done by the Lords which were then about him The King was able to discern by the drift of this Ambassie that the Queen was privy to the practice and that the Ambassadors were sent thither rather to animate and encourage the Conspirators then advise with him But not being willing at that time to displease either Her or them he absolutely consents to the restoring of the Earl of Angus and to the rest gave such a general answer as gave some hope that he was not so incensed by this Surprize of his person but that his displeasure might be mitigated on their good behaviour And that the Queen of Scots also had the same apprehensions concerning the encouragement which they had from the Queen of England appears by her Letter to that Queen bearing date at Sheffield on the eighth of November In which she intimates unto Her That She was bound in Religion Duty and Iustice not to help forwards their Designs who secretly conspire His ruine and Hers both in Scotland and England And thereupon did earnestly perswade her by their near Alliance to be careful of Her Sons welfare not to intermeddle any further with the affairs of Scotland without her privity or the French Kings and to hold them for no other then Traytors who dealt so with Him at their pleasures But as Q. Elizabeth was not moved with her complaints to recede from the business so the Conspirators were resolved to pursue their advantage They knew on what terms the King stood with the people of Edenborough or might have known it if they did not by their Triumphant bringing back of Dury their excluded Minister as soon as they heard the first news of the Kings Restraint In confidence whereof they bring him unto Halyrood-House on the Eighth of October the rather in regard they understood that the General Assembly of the Kirk was to be held in that Town on the next day after of whose good inclinations to them they were nothing doubtful nor was there reason why they should 58. For having made a Formal Declaration to them concerning the necessity of their repair unto the King to the end they might take him out of the hands of his Evil Counsellors they desired the said Assembly to deliver their opinion in it And they good men pretending to do all things in the fear of God and after mature deliberation as the Act importeth first justifie them in that horrid Enterprize to have done good and acceptable service to God their Soveraign and their Native Countrey And that being done they gave order That all Ministers should publickly declare to their several flocks as well the danger into which they were brought as the deliverance which was effected for them by those Noble Persons with whom they were exhorted to unite themselves for the further deliverance of the Kirk and perfect Reformation of the Commonwealth Thus the Assembly leads the way and the Convention of Estates follows shortly after By which it was declared in favour of the said Conspirators That in their repairing to the King the Three and twentieth of August last and abiding with him since that time and whatsoever they had done in pursuance of it they had done good thankful and necessary service to the King and Countrey and therefore they are to be exonerated of all actions Civil or Criminal that might be intended against them or any of them in that respect inhibiting thereby all the Subjects to speak or utter any thing to the contrary under the pain to be esteemed Calumniators and Dispersers of false Rumors and to be punished for the same accordingly The Duke perceives by these proceedings how that cold Countrey even in the coldest time of the year would be too hot for him to continue any longer in it and having wearied himself with an expectation of some better fortune is forced at last on the latter end of December to put into Berwick from whence he passeth to the Court of England and from thence to France never returning more unto his Natural but Ingrateful Countrey The Duke had hardly left the Kingdom when two Ambassadors came from France to attone the differences to mediate for the Kings deliverance and to sollicite that the Queen whose liberty had been negotiated with the Queen of England might bâ— made Co-partner with Her Son in the Publick Government â—hich last was so displeasing to some zealous Ministers that they railed against them in their Pulpits calling them Ambassadors of that bloody Murtherer the Duke of Guise foolishly exclaiming that the White-Cross which one of them wore upon his shoulders as being a Knight of the Order of the Holy Ghost was a Badge of Antichrist The King gives order to the Provost and other Magistrates of the City of Edenborough that the Ambassadors should be feasted at their going away and care is taken in providing all things necessary for the Entertainment But the good Brethren of the Kirk in further manifestation of their peevish Follies Indict a Fast upon that day take up the people in their long-winded Exercises from the morning till night rail all the while on the Ambassadors and with much difficulty are disswaded from Excommunicating both the Magistrates and the Guests to boot 59. The time of the Kings deliverance drew on apace sooner then was expected by any of those who had the custody of his person Being permitted to retire with his Guards to Falkland that he might recreate himself in Hunting which he much affected he obtained leave to bestow a visit on his Uncle the Earl of March who then lay in S. Andrews not far off And after he had taken some refreshment with him he procures leave to see the Castle Into which he was no sooner entred but Col. Stewart the Captain of his Guard to whom alone he had communicated his design makes fast the gates against the rest and from thence makes it known to all good Subjects that they should repair unto the King who by Gods great mercy had escaped from the hands of his Enemies This news brings thither on the next morning the Earls of Arguile Marshal Montross and Rothess and they drew after them by their example such a general concourse that the King finds himself of sufficient strength to return to Edenborough and from thence having shewed himself to be in his former liberty he goes back to Perth Where first by Proclamation he declares the late restraint of his Person to be a most treasonable act but then withal to manifest his great affection to the peace of his Kingdom he gives a Free and General Pardon to all men whatsoever which had acted in it provided that they seek it of him and carry themselves for the time coming like
possibly this may be excused though not defended as being done in hot blood when the spirits of the Soldiers were enflamed with anger by reason of the loss of so many of their Chief Commanders occasioned by the holding out of the obstinate Party or the loss of their Fellows and could not easily be quenched but by the blood of their Enemies 40. I shall not touch upon the particulars of this Warr which was quick and violent and as succesful on the King's part as he could desire Let it suffice that within the compass of Eighteen Months or thereabouts he stript them of no fewer than One hundred of their strongest places so that their whole strength was reduced in a manner to two Towns only that is to say the strong Town of Montalbon and the Port of Rochel the rest submitting one by one at the first demand A Peace is thereupon concluded before Montpellier agreeable enough to the Will of the Victor and with security enough to the vanquished Party if all Conclusions had been kept with as great a constancy as they had been agreed upon with a seeming alacrity By which Accord the said two Towns were to be held in caution for three years only and the last seemed much over-awed by the Fort of K. Lewis erected by the Count of Soiscons when he lay before it For the demolishing of which Fort the King was earnestly sollicited by their Commissioners and for the not granting whereof when it was desired he was accused for violating the Pacification which he had made with them before Montpellier and solemnly confirmed in the Courts of Parliament And on the other side the King complained as sensibly against the Hugonots in regard they had not setled the Ecclesiasticks in their lawful Possessions nor admitted those of the Roman-Catholick Religion unto Civil Offices in any of their Towns and Territories as by the Articles of that Pacification they were bound to do So that the Wound seemed rather to be skinned than healed and suddenly became more dangerous than at first it was For those of Rochel being somewhat blocked up by Fort Lewis toward the Land practised with the Duke of Soubize to grow strong by Sea and make up a Fleet consisting of Eleven men of Warr besides lesser Vessels enter the large Haven of Blavet in Bretagne seize upon all the Ships which they found therein and amongst others six of great strength and beauty belonging to the Duke of Nevers By the accession of this Strength they seize upon the Isles of Rhe and Oleron with all the Shipping in the same and having gathered together a Navy of no fewer than Seventy Sail they infest the Seas and interrupt the course of Traffick 41. For the repressing of these Pyrates for they were no better the King sends out the Duke of Montmorency with a Naval Power hires Twenty men of Warr of the States of Holland and borrows Eight tall Ships of the King of England With which he gives battel to Soubize beats him at Sea and forceth him to flye dishonourably from the Isle of Rhe which the French presently possess and begin to fortifie For the removal of whose Forces from that Island which blockt up their Haven the Rochellers mediate by Soubize with K. CHARLES of England betwixt whom and his Brother of France some disgust had hapned for sending back the French of both Sexes whom the Queen brought with her For hereupon the French King seizeth upon all the English Ships which traded on the River of Bourdeaux and the English to revenge the wrong sets out a Fleet of Thirty sail all Men of Warr commanded by the Earls of Denbigh and Lindsey with an intent to steer for Rochel and relieve that Town But being encountred with cross winds they came back again and leave the prosecuting of the Action to the Duke of Buckingham Who the next year sets forward with a puissant Army consisting of Ten thousand men and wafted over in One hundred and fifty Sail of Ships all fit for Service His Design was for the recovering of the Isle of Rhe and relieving Rochel Both which he might have compassed without any great difficulty if he had not lost the opportunities which he gained at his landing passed by the Fort of La Pre as not worth the taking and suffering himself to be complemented out of the storming of St. Martins when it was at his mercy For the French Forces entring by the Fort of La Pre compelled him to an unsafe Retreat but of a great part of his Army and sent him back with far less Honour than he brought a-long with him 42. But the Relief of Rochel is not so given over A strong Fleet is prepared for the year next following to be commanded by the Duke who gave himself more hopes of good Fortune in it than his Fates assigned him For being villanously slain at Portsmouth when he was almost ready to embark his Soldiers the Conduct of the Action is committed to the Earl of Lindsey who very cheerfully and couragiously undertook the Service But the French had blockt up the Haven of Rochel with Piles and Ramparts and other most stupendious Works in the midst of the Ocean that it was utterly impossible for the Earl to force his passage though he did most gallantly attempt it Which being observed by those of Rochel who were then besieged to Landward by the King in Person and even reduced unto the last extremity by Plagues and Famine they presently set open their Gates and without making any Conditions for their preservation submitted absolutely to that Mercy which they had scorned so often in their prosperous Fortunes The King thus Master of the Town dismantleth all their Fortifications leaves it quite open both to Sea and Land commands them to renounce the Name of Rochel and to take unto the Town the Name of Mary Ville or Bourg de St. Mary But herein his Command found but small compliance the Name of Rochel still remaining and that of Mary Ville or Bourg de St. Mary almost as soon forgotten as it had been given After which followed the surrendry of Nismess and Montalbon two impregnable places the first of which had been re-fortified in these last Commotions For What Town could presume of standing out against the King when Rochel had been forced to submit to Mercy 43. See now to what a low condition these hot Calvinian spirits have reduced themselves by their frequent Insolencies how different their Affairs were at the end of this Warr from that Felicity which they enjoyed when they first began it Before the beginning of the Warr Anno 1620 they were possessed of well-near Two hundred strong Towns and Castles well fortified for their personal safety besides many fair Houses and large Territories which they had in the Villages in which their Pleasures and their Profits were a-like consulted they slept all of them under their own Vines and their own Fig-trees neither
found no place so open to them as the Town of Geneva and none more ready to befriend them then Calvin was whose Letters must be sent to all the Churches of the Switzers and the Neighbouring Germany for raising Contributions and Collections toward their relief which so exasperated the French King that he threatned to make War upon the Town as the fomenter of those discords which embroyled his Kingdom the Receptacle of his Rebels the Delphos as it were of that Sacred Oracle which Soveraignly directed all affairs of moment But of these things and how Beza did co-operate to the common troubles which did so miserably distract the peace of France shall be delivered more particularly in the following Book 49. As for the Town and Territory of Geneva it self it had so far submitted unto their Authority that Calvin wanted nothing of a Bishop in it but the name and title The City of Geneva had been anciently an Episcopal See consisting of many Parishes and Country Villages all subject by the Rules of the Discipline unto one Presbytery of which Calvin for the term of his life had the constant Precedency under the style of Moderator without whom nothing could done which concerned the Church And sitting as chief President in the Court or Consistory he had so great an influence on the Common-council as if he had been made perpetual Dictator also for ordering the affairs of the Common-wealth The like Authority was exercised and enjoyed by Beza also for the space of ten years or thereabouts after his decease At what time Lambertus Danaeus one of the Ministers of that City thinking himself inferiour to him in no part of Scholarship procured the Presidency in that Church to go by turns that he and others might be capable of their courses in it By which means the Genevians being freed from those powerful Riders would never suffer themselves to be bridled as they had been formerly For thereupon it was concluded by a Decree of the Senate that the Presbytery should have no power to convent any man before them till the Warrant was first signed by one of the Syndicks Besides which curb as the Elders are named by the lesser Council and confirmed by the greater the Ministers advice being first had in the nomination so do they take an Oath at their admission to keep the Ecclesiastical Ordinances of the Civil Magistrate In which respect their Consistory doth not challenge an exorbitant and unlimited power as the Commissioners of Christ as they did afterwards in Scotland but as Commissioners of the State or Signiory by which they are restrained in the exercise of that Jurisdiction which otherwise they might and would have challenged by their first institution and seemed at first a yoke too insupportable for the necks of the people In reference to their Neighbouring Princes their City was so advantageously seaâ—ed that even their Popish Neighbours were more ready to support and aid them then suffer the Town to fall into the power of the Duke of Savoy And then it is not to be doubted but such States and Kingdoms as were Zealous in the Reformation did liberally contribute their assistance to them The conâ—â—uence of so many of the French as had retired thither in the heat of the Civil Wars had brought a miserable Plague upon them by which their numbers were so lessened and their strength so weakned that the Duke of Savoy took the oppornity to lay Siege unto it In which distress they supplicate by Letters to all their Friends or such as they conceived might wish well unto them in the cause of Religion and amongst others to some Bishops and Noble-men of the Church of England Anno 1582. But Beza having writ to Traverse a most Zealous Puritan to negotiate in it the business sped the worse for the Agents sake no great supply being sent unto them at that time But afterwards when they were distressed by the Savoyard Anno 1589 they were relieved with thirteen thousand Crowns from England twenty four thousand Crowns from the State of Venice from France and Florence with intelligence of the enemies purposes onely the Scots though otherwise most zealous in advancing the Discipline approved themselves to be true Scots or false Brethren to them For having raised great sums of mony under pretence of sending seasonable relief to their friends in Geneva the most part of it was assigned over to the Earl of Bothwel then being in Rebellion against their King and having many ways endeavoured to surprise his person and in fine to take away his life But this prank was not play'd until some years after and therefore falls beyond the time of my design which was and is to draw down the successes of the Presbyterians in their several Countries till the year 1585 and then to take them all together as they related unto England or were co-incident with the Actions and Affairs thereof But we must make our way by France as lying nearest to the practices of the Mother-City though Scotland at a greater distance first took fire upon it and England was as soon attempted as the French themselves The end of the first Book AERIVS REDIVIVVS OR The History Of the PRESBYTERIANS LIB II. Containing The manifold Seditions Conspiracies and Insurrections in the Realm of France their Libelling against the State and the Wars there raised by their procurement from the year 1559 to 1585. 1. THe Realm of France having long suffered under the corruptions of the Church of Rome was one of the first Western Kingdoms which openly declared against those abuses Beringarius in the Neighbouring Italy had formerly opposed the Gross and Carnal Doctrines of the Papists in the point of the Sacrament Whose opinions passing into France from one hand to another were at last publickly maintained by Peter Waldo one of the Citizens of Lyons who added thereunto many bitter invectives against the Supremacy of the Pope the Adoration of Images the Invocation of Saints and the Doctrine of Purgatory His Followers from the place of his Habitation were at first called in contempt The poor men of Lyons as afterwards from the name of their Leader they were by the Latines called Waldenses by the French Les Vandoise But Lyons proving no safe place for them they retired into the more desert parts of Languedock and spreading on the banks of the River Alby obtained the name of Albigenses in the Latine Writers and of Les Albigeoise in the French supported by Raymond the Fourth Earl of Tholouse they became so insolent that they murthered Trincanel their Viscount in the City Beziers and dasht out the teeth of their Bishop having taken Sanctuary in St. Magdalens Church one of the Churches of that City For which high outrages and many others of like nature which ensued upon them they were warred upon by Lewis the Ninth of France Sirnamed the Saint and many Noble adventurers who sacrificed many of them in the self-same Church wherein they had spilt the
Tyrants of preceding times which comes up close to those irreverent and lewd expressions which frequently occur in Calvin Beza Knox c. in reference to the two Mary's Queens of England and Scotland and other Princes of that age which have been formerly recited in their proper places 35. The Royal Family being thus wretchedly exposed to the publick hatred he next applyes himself to stir up all the world against them both at home and abroad And first he laboureth to excite some desperate Zealot to commit the like assassinate on the King then Reigning as one Bodillus is reported in some French Histories to have committed on the person of Chilprick one of the last Kings of the Merovignians which he commemorates for a Noble and Heroick action and sets it out for an example and encouragement to some gallant French-man for the delivery of his Country from the Tyranny of the House of Valois the ruine whereof he mainly drives at in his whole designe And though he seem to make no doubt of prevailing in it yet he resolves to try his Fortune otherwise if that should fail And first beginning with their next neighbour the King of Spain he he puts them in remembrance of those many injuries which he and his Ancestors had received from the House of Valois acquaints him with the present opportunity which was offered to him of revenging of thoâ—e wrongs and making himself Master of the Realm of France and chalks him out a way how he might effect it that is to say by coming to a present Accord with the Prince of Orange indulging Liberty of Conscience to the Belgick Provinces and thereby drawing all the Hugonots to adhere unto him which counsel if he did not like he might then make the same use of the Duke of Savoy for whom the Hugonots in France had no small affection and by bestowing on him the adjoyning Regions of Lyonoise Dâ—ulphine and Provence might make himself Lord of all the rest without any great trouble The like temptation must be given to the Queen of England by putting her in minde of her pretences to the Crown it self and shewing how easie a thing it might be for her to acquire those Countries whose Arms and Titles she assumed with like disloyalty he excites the Princes of the Empire to husband the advantage which was offered to them for the recovering of Metz Toule and Verdun three Imperial Cities by this Kings Father wrested betwixt fraud and force from Charles the Fifth and ever since incorporated with the Realm of France If all which failed he is resolved to cast himself on the Duke of Guise though the most mortal and implacable enemy of the Hugonot Faction and makes a full address to him in a second Epistle prefixt before the Book it self in which he puts him in remembrance of his old pretensions to the Crown of France extorted by Hugh Capet from his Ancestors of the House of Loraigne offereth him the assistance of the Hugonot party for the recovery of his Rights and finally beseeches him to take compassion of his ruined Country cheerfully to accept the Crown and free the Kingdom from the spoil and tyranny of Boyes and Women together with that infinite train of Strangers Bawdes and Leachers which depend on them which was as great a Master-piece in the art of mischief as the wit of malice could devise 36. As for his Doctrines in reference to the common duties between Kings and Subjects we may reduce them to these heads that is to say 1. That the Authority of Kings and Supreme Magistrates is circumscribed and limited by certain bounds which if they pass their Subjects are no longer tyed unto their obedience that Magistrates do exceed those bounds when either they command such things as God forbiddeth or prohibit that which he commands that therefore they are no longer to be obeyed if their Commands are contrary to the Rules of Piety or Christian Charity of which the Subjects must be thought the most competent Judges 2. That there were companies and societies of men before any Magistrates were set over them which Magistrates were no otherwise set over them then by common consent that every Magistrate so appointed was bound by certain Articles and Conditions agreed between them which he was tyed by Oath to preserve inviolable that the chief end for which the people chose a Superiour Magistrate was that they might remain in safety under his protection and therefore if such Magistrates either did neglect that end or otherwise infringe the Articles of their first Agreement the Subjects were then discharged from the bond of obedience and that being so discharged from the bond of obedience it was as lawful for them to take up Arms against their King in maintainance of their Religion Laws and Liberties if indangered by him as for a Traveller to defend himself by force of Arms against Thieves and Robbers 3. That no Government can be rightly constituted in which the Grandeur of the Prince is more consulted then the weal of the People that to prevent all such incroachments on the Common Liberty the people did reserve a power of putting a curb upon their Prince or Supreme Magistrates to hold them in such as the Tribunes were in Rome to the Senate and Consuls and the Ephori to the Kings of Sparta that such a power as that of the Spartan Ephori is vested in the seven Electors of the German Empire which gives them an Authority to depose the Emperour if they see cause for it and that the like may be affirmed of the English Parliaments who oftentimes have condemned their Kings but he knows not whom 4. That by the first constitutions of the Realm of France the Supreme power was not entrusted to the King but the three Estates so that it was not lawful for the King to proclaim a War or to lay Taxes on the people but by their consent that these Estates assembled in a Common Council did serve instead of eyes and ears to a prudent Prince but to a wicked and ungoverned for Bit or Bridle and that according to this power they dethroned many of their Kings for their Lusts Luxuries Cruelty Slothfulness Avarice c. that if they proceeded not in like manner with the King then Reigning it was because they had an high esteem with scorn and insolence enough of his eminent Vertues his Piety Justice and Fidelity and the great commendations which was given of his Mothers Chastity and therefore finally which was the matter to be proved by those Factious Principles that it was altogether as lawful for the French to defend themselves their Laws and Liberties against the violent assault of a furious Tyrant so he calls their King as a Traveller by Thieves and Robbers Which Aphorisms he that listeth to consult in the Author may finde them from pag. 57. to 66. of the second Dialogue and part 1. pag. 8. 37. But notwithstanding these indignities
excited him with many Captains and Commanders who for the most part lived upon spoil and plunder to raise an Army of seven thousand Horse and four thousand Foot with which they made foul work in France wasting and spoiling all Countries wheresoever they came for being joyned unto the rest of the Hugonots Army they found them brought to such a poor and low condition that they were not able to advance the least part of that sum which they had promised to provide against their coming Somewhat was raised by way of Contribution to keep them in some present compliance and for the rest they were permitted to pay themselves in the spoil of the Country especially Churches Monasteries and Religious Houses But the Queen offering termes of Peace none were more forward then these Germans to imbrace the offer and Casimir more forward in it then all the rest The King had offered to disburse a great part of the money which belonged to the Souldiers for their pay which to those mercenary spirits was too strong a temptation to be resisted or neglected 8. These Germans were scarcely setled in their several Houses when the Hugonots brake out again and a new Army must be raised by the Duke of Zudibruck whom the French call the Duke of Deuxponts a Prince of the Collateral Line to the Electoral Family who upon hope of being as well paid as his Cozen Casimir tempted with many rich promises by the Heads of the Hugonots and secretly encouraged by some Ministers of the Queen of England made himself Master of a great and puisâ—ant Army consisting of eight thousand Horse and six thousand Foot With this Army he wastes all the Country from the very edge of Burgundy to the Banks of Loire crosseth that River and commits the like outrages in all the Provinces which lye between that River and the Aquitain Ocean In which action either with the change of Air the tediousness of his Marches or excessive drinking he fell into a violent Feaver which put a period to his travails within few days after Nor did this Army come off better though it held out longer for many of them being first consumed with sickness arising from their own intemperance and the delicious lusts of the Strumpets of France the rest were almost all cut off at the Battail of Mont-counter in which they lost two Colonels and twenty seven Captains of Foot and all their Horse except two thousand which saved themselves under Count Lodowick of Nassaw But the love of money prevailed more with them then the fear of death For within few years after Anno 1575 we finde them entring France again under Prince Iohn Casimir in company with the young Prince of Conde who had sollicited the Cause The Army at that time consisting of eight thousand Horse three thousand French Fire-locks and no fewer then fourteen thousand Switz and Germane Foot joyned with the Hugonots and a new Faction of Politicks or Male-contents under the Command of the Duke of Alanzon who had revolted from his Brother became so terrible to the King that he resolved to buy his Peace upon any rates To which end having somewhat cooled the heats of his Brother he purchaseth the departure of the Germane Souldiers by ingaging to pay them their Arrears which came in all to twelve hundred thousand Crowns on a full computation Besides the payment of which vast sum he was to gratifie Prince Casimir with the Siguory of â—hasâ—eau-Thierry in the Province of Champagne the command of one hundred French Lances and an annual pension of fourteen thousand Crowns as before was said 9. In the mean time the flames of the like civil War consumed a great part of Flanders to which the Prince Elector must bring Fewel also For being well affected to the House of Nassaw and more particularly to the Prince of Orange and knowing what encouragements the Calvinians in the Netherlands had received from them he hearkned cheerfully to such Propositions as were made to him at the first by Count â—odowick his Ministers and after by the Agents of the Prince himself But those small Forces which he sent at their first ingaging doing no great service he grants them such a large supply after the first return of Prince Casimirs Army Anno 1568 as made them up a Body of French and Germans consisting of seven thousand Foot and four thousand Horse with which he sent Prince Christopher a younger Son to gain experience in the War and to purchase Honour And though he might have been discouraged by the loss of that Army and the death oâ— his Son into the bargain from medling further in that quarrel yet the Calvinian spirit so predominated in his Court and Counsels that another Army should be raised and Casimir imployed as Commander of it as soon as he could give himself the least assurance that the French required not his assistance During the languishing of which Kingdom between Peace and War the War in Flanders grew more violent and fierce then ever which moved the Provinces confederated with the Prince of Orange to enter into a strict union with the Queen of England who could not otherwise preserve her self from the plots and practices of Don Iohn of Austria by which he laboured to embroyl her Kingdom By the Articles of which League or Union she bound her self to aid them with one thousand Horse and five thousand Foot the greatest part whereof she raised in the Dominions of the Prince Elector or indeed rather did contribute to the payment of so much money for his Army which was drawn together for the service of the Prince of Orange as might amount unto that number And that they might receive the greater countenance in the eye of the World she sends for Casimir into England where he arrived about the latter end of Ianuary 1578 is Royally feasted by the Queen rewarded with an annual Pension and in the next year made Knight of the Garter also By these encouragements he returns to his charge in the Army which he continued till the calling in of the Duke of Anjou and then retired into Germany to take breath a while where he found such an alteration in the State of affairs as promised him no great assurance of employment on the like occasion 10. For Lodowick the fifth succeeding Prince Elector in the place of his Father and being more inclined to the Lutheran Forms did in time settle all his Churches on the same Foundation on which it had been built by the Electors of the former Line so that it was not to be thought that either he could aid the Hugonots or the Belgick Calvinists in any of their Insurrections against their Princes if either of them possibly could have had the confidence to have moved him in it But he being dead and Frederick the Fourth succeeding the Zuinglian Doctrines and the Genevian Discipline are restored again and then Prince Casimir is again sollicited to raise a greater
pardon And when men once are brought unto such a condition they must resolve to fight it out to the very last and either carry away the â—arland as a signe of Victory or otherwise live like Slaves or dye like Traytors But this was done according to Calvins Doctrine in the Book of Institutes in which he gives to the Estates of each several Country such a Coercive Power over Kings and Princes as the Ephori had exercised over the Kings of Sparta and the Roman Tribunes sometimes put in practice against the Consuls And more then so he doth condemn them of a betraying of the Peoples Liberty whereof they are made Guardians by Gods own appointment so he saith at least if they restrain not Kings when they play the Tyrants and want only insult upon or oppress the Subjects So great a Master could not but meet with some apt Scholars in the Schools of Politie who would reduce his Rules to practice and justifie their practice by such great Authority 54. But notwithstanding the unseasonable publication of such an unprecedented sentence few of the Provinces fell off from the Kings obedience and such strong Towns as still remained in the hands of the States were either forced unto their duty or otherwise hard put to it by the Prince of Parma To keep whom busied in such sort that he should not be in a capacity of troubling his Affairs in Holland the Prince of Orange puts the Brabanders whose priviledges would best bear it to a new Election And who more fit to be the man then Francis Duke of Anjou Brother to Henry the Third of France and then in no small possibility of attaining to the Marriage of the Queen of England Assisted by the Naval power of the one and the Land-Forces of the other What Prince was able to oppose him and what power to withstand him The young Duke passing over into England found there an entertainment so agreeable to all expectations that the Queen was seen to put a Ring upon one of his Fingers which being looked on as the pledge of a future Marriage the news thereof posted presently to the Low Countries by the Lord Aldegund who was then present at the Court where it was welcomed both in Antwerp and other places with all signes of joy and celebrated by discharging of all the Ordnance both on the Walls and in such Ships as then lay on the River After which triumph comes the Duke accompanied by some great Lords of the Court of England and is invested solemnly by the Estates of those Countries in the Dukedoms of Brabant and Limburg the Marquisate of the holy Empire and the Lordship of Machlin which action seems to have been carryed by the power of the Consistorian Calvinists for besides that it agreeth so well with their common Principles they were grown very strong in Antwerp where Philip Lord of Aldegund a profest Calvinian was Deputy for the Prince of Orange as they were also in most Towns of consequence in the Dukedom of Brabant But on the other side the Romish party was reduced to such a low estate that they could not freely exercise their own Religion but onely as it was indulged unto them by Duke Francis their new-made Soveraign upon condition of taking the Oath of Allegiance to him and abdicating the Authority of the King of Spain the grant of which permission had been vain and of no significancie if at that time they could have freely exercised the same without it But whosoever they were that concurred most powerfully in conferring this new honour on him he quickly found that they had given him nothing but an airy Title keeping all power unto themselves So that upon the matter he was nothing but an honourable Servant and bound to execute the commands of his mighty Masters In time perhaps he might have wrought himself to a greater power but being young and ill advised he rashly enterprised the taking of the City of Antwerp of which being frustrated by the miscarriage of his plot he returned ingloriously into France and soon after dyes 55. And now the Prince of Orange is come to play his last part on the publick Theatre his winding Wit had hitherto preserved his Provinces in some terms of peace by keeping Don Iohn exercised by the General States and the Prince of Parma no less busied by the Duke of Anjou nor was there any hope of recovering Holland and Zealand to the Kings obedience but either by open force or some secret practice the first whereof appeared not possible and the last ignoble But the necessity of removing him by what means soever prevailed at last above all sence and terms of Honour And thereupon a desperate young Fellow is ingaged to murther him which he attempted by discharging a Pistol in his face when he was at Antwerp attending on the Duke of Anjou so that he hardly escaped with life But being recovered of that blow he was not long after shot with three poyson Bullets by one Balthasar Gerard a Burgundian born whom he had lately taken into his service which murder was committed at Delph in Holland on the 10 of Iune 1584 when he had lived but fifty years and some months over He left behind him three Sons by as many Wives On Anne the Daughter of Maximilian of Egmont Earl of Bucen he begat Philip Earl of Bucen his eldest Son who succeeded the Prince of Orange after his decease By Anne the Daughter of Maurice Duke Elector of Saxony he was Father of Grave Maurice who at the age of eighteen years was made Commander General of the Forces of the States United and after the death of Philip his Elder Brother succeeded him in all his Titles and Estates And finally by his fourth Wife Lovise Daughter of Gasper Colligny great Admiral of France for of his third being a Daughter to the Duke of Montpensier he had never a Son he was the Father of Prince Henry Frederick who in the year 1625 became Successor unto his Brother in all his Lands Titles and Commands Which Henry by a Daughter of the Count of Solmes was Father of William Prince of Orange who married the Princess Mary Eldest Daughter of King Charles the second Monarch of great Britain And departing this life in the flower of his youth and expectations Anno 1650 he left his Wife with Childe of a Post-humous Son who after was baptized by the name of William and is now the onely surviving hope of that famous and illustrious Family 56. But to return again to the former William whom we left weltring in his bloud at Delph in Holland He was a man of great possessions and Estates but of a soul too large for so great a Fortune For besides the Principality of Orange in France and the County of Nassaw in Germany he was possessed in right of his first Wife of the Earldom of Bucen in Gelderland as also of the Town and Territories of Lerdame and Iselstine in Holland
Establishment yet she knew very well both by their Preachings and Writings that they had defamed the Church of England that many of them refused to be present at that Form of Worship which had the countenance of the Laws and had set up a new Form of their own devising Which moved the Queen to look upon them as men of an unquiet and seditious spirit greedy of change intent on the destruction of all things which they found established and ready once again to break out into open Schism For the preventing whereof she gave command That the severity of the Laws for keeping up the Vniformity of Gods Publick Worship should be forthwith put in execution And that all such scandalous Books and Pamphlets the first and second Admonition amongst the rest should either be immediately delivered to some Bishop in their several Diocesses or to some one or other of the Lords of the Council upon pain of imprisonment 4. This Proclamation much amazed the Disciplinarians who were not onely more sollicitous in searching into the true Cause and Originial of it then ready to execute their vengeance upon all such Councellors as they suspected for the Authors Sir Christopher Hatton was at that time in especial favour Vice-chamberlain Captain of the Guard and aftewards Lord-Chancellor also in the whole course of his preferments of a known aversness to the Earl of Leicester and consequently no friend to the Puritan Faction This obstacle must be removed one way or other according to that Principle of the ancient Donatists for murthering any man of what Rank soever which opposed their Practices This Office Burchet undertakes and undertakes the Office upon this Opinion that it was lawful to assassinate any man who opposed the Gospel But being blind with too much light he mistook the man and meeting in the Street with Hawkins one of the greatest Sea-Captains of the times he lived in he stabbed him desperately with a Ponyard conceiving that it had been Hatton their professed Enemy For which committed to the Tower he was there examined found to hold many dangerous and erronious Tenents and thereupon sent Prisoner to the Lollards-Tower From thence being called into the Consistory of St. Pauls before the Bishop of London and divers others and by them examined he still persisted in his errors till the sentence of death was ready on the 4 of November to be pronounced against him as an Heretick Through the perswasions of some men who took great pains with him he made a shew as if he had renounced and abjured those Opinions for erronious and damnable which formerly he had imbraced with so strong a passion From thence returned unto the Tower by the Lords of the Council he took an opportunity when one of his Keepers was withdrawn to murther the other intending the like also to his Fellow if he had not happily escaped it For which Fact he was arraigned and condemned at Westminster on the morrow after and the next day he was hanged up in the very place where he wounded Hawkins his Right hand being first cut off and nailed to the Gibbet a piece of Justice not more safe then seasonable the horridness of the Fact and the complexion of the times being well considered 5. The Regular Clergy slept not in so great a tempest as was then hanging over their heads but spent themselves in censuring and confuting Cartwrights Pamphlets which gave the first Animation to those bold attempts What censure Bishop Iewel past upon Cartwrights Papers hath been shewn before and he will give you his opinion of the Author also of whom it is reported that he gave this Character viz. Stultitia nata est in corde pueri sed virga Disciplinae fugabit eam That is to say That folly had been bred in the heart of the young man and nothing but a Rod of correction would remove it from him But Iewel had onely seen some scattered Papers intended for materials in the following Pamphlet which Whitaker both saw and censured when it was compleat For writing of it unto Whitgift he reports him thus Quem Cartwrightus nuper emisit libellum c. I have read over saith he a great part of the Book which Cartwright hath lately set forth Let me never live if I ever saw any thing more loose and almost more childish As for words indeed he hath store of them trim and fresh enough but as for matter none at all Besides which he not onely holds some peevish opinions derogatory to the Queens Authority in causes Ecclesiastical but had revolted also in that point to the Popish party from whom he would be thought to fly with such deadly hatred He adds in fine That he complied not with the Papists in that point alone but borrowed from them most of his other weapons wherewith he did assault the Church And in a word as Jerome did affirm of Ambrose that he was in words but a Triflâ—r and for his matter but a Dreamer and altogether unworthy to be refuted by a man of Learning But these were onely some preparatory drops to the following Tempest which fell upon him from the pen of the Learned Whitgift who punctually dissected the whole Admonition and solidly discoursed upon the Errors and Infirmities of it Which Book of his intituled An Answer to the Admonition followed so close upon the heels of the other that it was published in the same year with it 1572. To which Answer Cartwright sets out a Reply in the year next following and Whitgift presently rejoyns in his Defence of the Answer An. 1574. against which Cartwright never stirred but left him Master of the field possest of all the signs of an absolute Victory And not long after on the apprehension of his foil therein he withdraws to Guernsey first and to Antwerp afterwards erecting the Presbytery in those Forreign Nations which he could not compass in his own 7. For though the Brotherhood had attempted to advance their Discipline and set up their Presbyterie in the Church of Wandsworth yet partly by the terror of the Proclamation and partly by the seasonable execution of Burchet they were restrained from practising any further at the present on the Church of England But what they durst not do directly and in open sight they found a way to act obliquely and under the disguise of setting up another Church of strangers in the midst of London Many of the Low Countrey men both Merchants Gentlemen and others had fled their Countrey at the coming in of the Duke of Alva settled their dwellings in the Ports and Sea-Towns of England which lay nearest to them and in good numbers took up their abode in London Nor did they onely bring Families with them but their Factories also Their several Trades and Manufactures as the making of all sorts of Stuffs rich Tapistries and other Hangings of less worth and by their diligence therein not onely kept many poor English Families in continual work but taught the English
of the Queen not much improved in case it were not made more miserable In the time of K. IAMES some Propositions had been offered by Him in the Conference at Hampton-Court about sending Preachers into Ireland of which he was but half King as himself complained their Bodies being subject unto his Authority but their Souls and Consciences to the Pope But I find nothing done in pursuance of it till after the year 1607 where the Earl of Ter-ownen Ter-connel Sir Iohn Odaghartie and other great Lords of the North together with their Wives and Families took their flight from Ireland and left their whole Estates to the King 's disposing Hereupon followed the Plantation of Vlster first undertaken by the City of London who fortified Colraine and built London-Derrie and purchased many thousand Acres of Lands in the parts adjoyning But it was carried on more vigorously as more unfortunately withall by some Adventurers of the Scottish Nation who poured themselves into this Countrey as the richer Soil And though they were sufficiently industrious in improving their own Fortunes there and set up Preaching in all Churches whersoever they fixed yet whether it happened for the better or for the worse the event hath showed For they brought with them hither such a stock of Puritanism such a contempt of Bishops such a neglect of the publick Liturgy and other Divine Offices of this Church that there was nothing less to be found amongst them than the Government and Forms of Worship established in the Church of England 32. Nor did the Doctrine speed much better if it sped not worse For Calvinism by degrees had taken such deep root amongst them that at the last it was received and countenanced as the only Doctrine which was to be defended in the Church of Ireland For not contented with the Articles of the Church of England they were resolved to frame a Confession of their own the drawing up whereof was referred to Dr. Iames Vsher then Provost of the Colledg of Dublin and afterwards Arce-bishop of Armagh and Lord Primate of Ireland By whom the Book was so contrived that all the Sabbatarian and Calvinian Rigors were declared therein to be the Doctrines of that Church For first the Articles of Lambeth rejected at the Conference at Hampton-Court must be inserted into this Confession as the chief parts of it And secondly An Article must be made of purpose to justifie the Morality of the Lord's-day-Sabbath and to require the spending of it wholly in Religious Exercises Besides which deviations from the Doctrine of the Church of England most grievous Torments immediately in His Soul are there affirmed to be endured by Christ our Saviour which Calvin makes to be the same with his descent into Hell The Abstinencies from eating Flesh upon certain days declared not to be Religious Fasts but to be grounded upon Politick Ends and Considerations All Ministers adjudged to be lawfully called who are called unto the work of the Ministry by those that have publick Authority given them in the Church but whether they be Bishops or not it makes no matter so they be authorized unto it by their several Churches The Sacerdotal Power of Absolution made declarative only and consequently quite subverted No Power ascribed to the Church in making Canons or Censuring any of those who either carelesly or maliciously do infringe the same The Pope made Antichrist according to the like determination of the French Hugonots at Gappe in Daulphine And finally Such a silence concerning the Consecration of Arch-bishops and Bishops expresly justified and avowed in the English Book as if they were not a distinct Order from the common Presbyters All which being Vsher's own private Opinions were dispersed in several places of the Articles for the Church of Ireland approved of in the Convocation of the year 1615 and finally confirmed by the Lord Deputy Chichester in the Name of King IAMES 33. What might induce King IAMES to confirm these Articles differing in so many points from his own Opinion is not clearly known but it is probable that he might be drawn to it on these following grounds For first He was much governed at that time in all Church-concernments by Dr. George Abbot Arch-bishop of Canterbury and Dr. Iames Mountague Bishop of Bath and Wells who having formerly engaged in maintenance of some or most of those Opinions as before is said might find it no hard matter to perswade the King to a like approbation of them And secondly The King had so far declared himself in the Cause against Vorstius and so affectionately had espoused the Quarrel of the Prince of Orange against those of the Remonstrant Party in the Belgick Churches that he could not handsomely refuse to confirm those Doctrines in the Church of Ireland which he had countenanced in Holland Thirdly The Irish Nation at that time were most tenaciously addicted to the Errors and Corruptions of the Church of Rome and therefore must be bended to the other Extream before they could be straight and Orthodox in these points of Doctrine Fourthly and finally It was an usual practise with that King in the whole course of His Government to balance one Extream by the other countenancing the Papists against the Puritans and the Puritans against the Papists that betwixt both the true Religion and Professors of it might be kept in safety But whether I hit right or not certain it is that it proved a matter of sad consequence to the Church of England there being nothing more ordinary amongst those of the Puritan Party when they were pressed in any of the points aforesaid then to appeal unto the Articles of Ireland and the infallible Judgment of K. IAMES who confirmed the same And so it stood until the year 1634 when by the Power of the Lord Deputy Wentworth and the Dexterity of Dr. Iohn Bramhall then Lord Bishop of Derry the Irish Articles were repealed in a full Convocation and those of England authorised in the place thereof 34. Pass we next over to the Isles of Iersey and Guernsey where the Genevian Discipline had been setled under Queen ELIZABETH and being so setled by that Queen was confirmed by K. IAMES at his first coming to this Crown though at the same time he endeavoured a subversion of it in the Kirk of Scotland But being to do it by degrees and so to practise the restoring of the old Episcopacy as not to threaten a destruction to their new Presbyteries it was thought fit to tolerate that Form of Government in those petit Islands which could have no great influence upon either Kingdom Upon which ground he sends his Letter to them of the 8 th of August first writ in French and thus translated into English that is to say 35. JAMES by the Grace of God King of England Scotland France and Ireland c. Vnto all those whom these Presents shall concern greeting Whereas We Our selves and the Lords of Our Council have been given to understand that
it pleased God to put into the heart of the late Queen Our most dear Sister to permit and allow unto the Isles of Jersey and â—uernsey parcel of the Dutchy of Normandy the use of the â—â—â—â—ment of the Reformed Churches of the said Dutchy whereof they have stood possessed until Our coming to the Crown For this cause We desiring to follow the pious Example of Our said Sister in this behalf as well for the advancement of the Glory of Almighty God as for the edification of his Church do will and ordain That Our said Isles shall quietly enjoy their said Liberty in the use of Ecclesiastical Discipline there now established Forâ—idding any one to give them any trouble or impeachment so long as they contain themselves in Our obedience and attempt not any thing against the Power and Sacred Word of God Given at our Palace at Hampton-Court the 8th of August in the first year of Our Reign of England 1603. 36. This Letter was communicated unto all whom it might concern in a Synod of both Islands held in Iersey Anno 1605. But long they were not suffered to enjoy the benefit of this Dispensation For sir Iohn Peiton who succeeded Governour of Iersey in the place of Raleigh had of himself no good affections to that Platform and possibly might be furnished with some secret Instructions for altering it in the Island on the first conveniency The ground whereof was laid upon this occasion The Curate of St. Iohn's being lately dead it pleased the Colloquie of that Island according to their former method to appoint one Brevin to succeed him Against this course the Governour the King's Attorney and other the Officers of the Crown protested publickly as being prejudicial to the Rights and Profits of the King Howbeit the Case was over-ruled and the Colloquie for that time carried it Hereupon a Bill of Articles was exhibited to the Lords of the Council against the Ministers of that Island by Peiton the Governour Marret the Attorney and the rest as viz. That they had usurped the Patronage of all Benefices in the Island That thereby they admitted men to Livings without any Form or Presentation and by that means deprived his Majesty of Vacancies and First-fruits That by the connivance to say no worse of it of the former Governours they exercised a kind of Arbitrary Iurisdiction making and disannulling Laws at their own most uncertain pleasure In consideration whereof they humbly pray His Sacred Majesty to grant them such a Discipline as might be fittest to the nature of the Place and less derogatory to the Royal Prerogative 37. In the pursuance of this Project Sir Robert Gardiner once Chief Justice of Ireland and Iames Husley Dr. of the Laws are sent Commissioners unto that Island though not without the colour of some other business To these Commissioners the Ministers give in their Answer which may be generally reduced to these two heads First That their appointment of men into the Ministry and the exercise of Jurisdiction being principal parts of the Church-Discipline had been confirmed unto them by His Sacred Majesty And secondly That the payment of First-fruits and Tenths had never been exacted from them since they were freed from their subordination to the Bishops 〈◊〉 â—onstance to whom formerly they had been due But these Anâ—â—â—â— giving no just satisfaction unto the Council of England and nothing being done in order to a present Settlement a foul deformity both of Confusion and Distraction did suddenly overgrow the face of those wretched Churches For in the former times all such as took upon them any publick Charge either in Church or Common-wealth had bound themselves by Oath to cherish and maintain the Discipline That Oath is now disclaimed as dangerous and unwarrantable Before it was their custom to exact subscription to their Plat-form of all such as purposed to receive the Sacrament but now the King's Attorney and others of that Party chose rather to abstain from the Communion than to yeeld Subscription Nay even the very Elders silly souls that thought themselves as sacro sancti as a Roman Tribune were drawn with Process into the Civil Courts and there reputed with the Vulgar Nor was the Case much better in the Sacred Consistory the Jurates in their Cohu or Town-Hall relieving such by their Authority whom that once paramount Tribunal had condemned or censured And yet this was not all the Mischief which befel them neither Those of the lower rank seeing the Ministers begin to stagger in their Chairs refused to set out their Tythes and if the Curates mean to exact their Dues the Law is open to all comers to try their Title Their Benefices which before were accounted as exempt and priviledged are now brought to reckon for First-fruits and Tenths and that not according to the Book of Constance as they had been formerly but by the will and pleasure of the present Governour And to make up the total sum of their Mis-fortunes one of the Constables preferrs a Bill against them in the common Cohu in which they were accused of Hypocrisie in their Conversation and Tyranny in the Exercise of their Jurisdiction and finally of holding some secret practises against the Governour which consequentially did reflect on the King Himself 38. In this Confusion they address themselves to the Earl of Salisbury then being Lord Treasurer of England and in great credit with King IAMES who seeming very much pleased with their Application advised them to invite their Brethren of the Isle of Guernsey to joyn with them in a Petition to the King for a redress of those Grievances which they then complained of A Counsel which then seemed rational and of great respect but in it self of greater cunning than it seemed in the first appearance For by this means as certainly he was a man of a subtile Wit he gave the King more time to compass his Designs in Scotland before he should declare himself in the present business and by engaging those of Guernsey in the same desires intended to subject them also to the same conclusion But this Counsel taking no effect by reason of the death of the Councellor they fall into another trouble of their own creating The Parish of St. Peters falling void by the death of the Minister the Governour presents unto it one Aaron Messering one that had spent his time in Oxon and had received the Order of Priesthood from the Right Reverend Dr. Bridges then Bishop of that Diocess but of himself a Native of the Isle of Iersey A thing so infinitely stomacked by those of the Colloquy that they would by no means yeeld unto his admission not so much in regard of his presentation by the Power of the Governour as because he had taken Orders from the hands of a Bishop For now they thought that Popery began to break in upon them and therefore that it did concern them to oppose it to the very last A new Complaint is